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We order off the dollar menu. Sports mogul Stan Kroenke rolls out of bed this morning to close a deal on an NFL franchise. Maybe billionaires really are different than you and me.

Hey, Mr. Kroenke:

If it’s not too much trouble, could you spend a little chump change on a general manager for the Nuggets?

David Griffin, a well-regarded former Phoenix Suns executive who is currently unemployed, has resisted Denver’s efforts to hire him as the guy who must clean up this mess with Carmelo Anthony.

So what’s the hang-up?

Money.

Griffin and the Nuggets have been unable to reach an agreement on his compensation, according to two league sources.

Say what?

You mean to tell me that Kroenke is ready, willing and able to convert his 40 percent stake into 100 percent ownership of the St. Louis Rams, which are valued at $750 million? But, at the same time, the Nuggets are unable to offer Griffin a salary competitive enough to lure him off his sofa?

No wonder the national unemployment rate hovers near 10 percent.

Is being general manager of the Nuggets such a dirty, stinking job that even Mike Rowe would rather wrangle snakes for a living?

Or, as an NBA executive told me Tuesday: If a basketball man who doesn’t have a job won’t take your job, what does that tell you about the job?

Josh Kroenke, the 30-year-old son of the billionaire and a former Missouri basketball player, is a serious man whose role with the Nuggets will expand exponentially as soon as the NFL rubber stamps his dad’s purchase of the Rams. Young Kroenke’s first task is to sell Anthony on his vision of the future.

It won’t be easy.

Sad to report, but this feels like the end of an era with the Nuggets.

The Kroenke family has been a good neighbor to Denver sports fans. There’s no questioning how much the Kroenkes love hoops. They would trade a Stanley Cup and Vince Lombardi Trophy for a chance to celebrate an NBA championship.

But what’s happening here has to be disconcerting to Chauncey Billups or anybody who grew up in Denver rooting for the Nuggets.

From Anthony’s stubborn reluctance to sign a three- year, $65 million contract extension, to the unceremonious dumping of squabbling front-office executives Mark Warkentien and Rex Chapman, to word the Nuggets have finally tired of guard J.R. Smith’s stupid human tricks, there’s a sense that cleaning house is rapidly becoming a higher priority for this franchise than chasing the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference standings.

With NBA commissioner David Stern indicating his franchise owners lost in excess of $1 billion during the last five years, the league seems headed for an unavoidable labor duel. And it seems nobody has an itchier trigger finger in this fight than Kroenke. He will find sympathy from many fans disgruntled by the sight of overpaid players going through the motions during too many regular-season games, because it’s not whether you win or lose, but for how many years that outrageous salary is guaranteed.

Maybe it’s time for the Nuggets to cut costs, hunker down and put a case of Hamburger Helper in the basement of the Pepsi Center to get ready for the long, lonely nights of an NBA lockout in 2011.

If you were Griffin or a bright young basketball mind, would you want any part of this scene?

Or maybe the better question this morning would be for La La Vazquez to nudge her husband and say:

WASHINGTON — Thirty games into the 82-game NHL season, and nearly six weeks after the Matt Duchene trade, Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic discussed the state of his team before Tuesday’s 5-2 loss at the Washington Capitals.